The Encounter of Bodies (2017)

On the opening of The Encounter of Bodies on 23 september we are releasing our show catalogue made in collaboration with the artist Stine Marie Jacobsen, designer Joakim Olsson and photographer Jeppe Sørensen.

The book consists of a fictive script by Stine Marie Jacobsen written in reference to the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where a main character pretends to be mentally ill and lets himself be admitted to a mental hospital to avoid a prison sentence and community service. Upon arriving at the mental hospital, the character finds the ward run by a strict nurse, who instead of helping the patients in their recovery actually suppresses their mental health.

Similarly, in The Encounter of Bodies curated artworks are in group therapy sessions led by strict curators. We follow their discussions and self-explanations in a “behind the scene” movie set, in an art museum-cum-mental institution. The Encounter of Bodies animates artworks to become alive in an exhibition (under the same name) at Ystad Art Museum. The artworks think they have been summoned to the museum to discuss and decide on the exhibitions format, but what the artworks don’t know is that they have been placed in psychological care and are now being investigated by the strict curators for their “sensitivities” and eccentricities. By providing the artworks with a voice, the catalogue text uncovers in a humorous way the ‘inner’ principles in play in each artwork. The curators’ mental diagnosis, which all the artworks fear, is ironically just a metaphor for standardized art description. Society is crazy and art is the voice of sanity.